2015 is not a good year for the VGC

General and high profile video game topics.
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BlasteroidAli
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Joined: April 9th, 2015, 7:50 pm

2015 is not a good year for the VGC

Postby BlasteroidAli » June 18th, 2015, 5:17 pm

I used to really look forward to reading this part of the web. Since the change to the format of the reviews I find myself not reading them any more. Too long and wordy. Just look at the swimming and the expend ones. I understand that VGC wants to talk about stuff but with sports one baseball game is pretty much like the next. It is basically a boring version of cricket and that in itself is a bore. I have never watched a full game of Baseball or cricket... so to see reviews for the game well it is just boring. UFC looks like to very gay indeed. Fifa football is tedious. Really I got it and deleted it the next day.

Also I used to love the last board it was quirky. Now we have this new message board which looks like the ones from 10 years ago. I HATE the colour scheme. Maybe it is because my lounge is blue. Or I have to wear blue in work.

Plus the conversations now are stilted.

I think I will still come and read the Atari 2600 stuff. Then go to True achievements for everything else. Or Steam. I mean you get to talk about the games and people agree with you. Even better no one likes that do do system that no one bought the Wii U.

I guess this is my way of saying goodbye. So long and thanks for the fish as Douglas Adams would say.

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VideoGameCritic
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Re: 2015 is not a good year for the VGC

Postby VideoGameCritic » June 18th, 2015, 8:25 pm

Well I definitely intend to fix the color scheme on these forums, but do other people agree about the format of the reviews themselves? Too long and dry?

I'm definitely willing to alter my style if it suit the readership. Let me know!

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ptdebate
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Re: 2015 is not a good year for the VGC

Postby ptdebate » June 18th, 2015, 8:42 pm

I'm sad to hear that the forum is losing an active member, but if you don't like what's on offer here then I guess there's no reason to stay.

I personally keep coming back because of the group of guys (JWK, JustLikeHeaven, Rev, DaHeckIzDat, nesfan, Scotland, and many others) that I really enjoy having conversations with. I don't think the conversation has gotten stilted. The new forums gain some new features (avatars) and also lose some (hotkey text formatting, recent topic preview on mobile forum main page), but overall I think the change is nice.

As for the reviews, well--I enjoy them, but I don't read them very often. I usually know in advance whether or not I'm going to buy a certain game because it's by a developer I know and trust (ATLUS, From Software, certain Square Enix staff, Comcept, or Sony Japan Studio for example). I won't play the vast majority of the games reviewed by the Critic either because his selection casts a far wider net than my preferences do. I don't play sports games, for example, or games that I know are going to be bad.

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scotland
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Re: 2015 is not a good year for the VGC

Postby scotland » June 18th, 2015, 9:33 pm

VideoGameCritic wrote:Well I definitely intend to fix the color scheme on these forums, but do other people agree about the format of the reviews themselves? Too long and dry?

I'm definitely willing to alter my style if it suit the readership. Let me know!


I know the person who said this had a fall from grace, but that fall did not detract from his being a success for decades. He said "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone."

You've been writing reviews for more than 15 years, playing games since the Atari VCS, I believe. This short humorous review is your style, and its your style for a reason. Certainly it changes a bit over time, but reviews 10 years apart are not so different that I could tell them apart if you took off the review date. You also let the rest of us critique those reviews, or write our own, and that's pretty neat. There are other sites for game reviews on the web, and I go to some of them to read walkthroughs or watch some videos. Yet I came back to this site time and time again, especially when I was actively collecting for the TG-16, and it was not because I was attached to this site for any reason whatsoever. I came back to it because those reviews were useful to me. Okay, I bought Double Dungeons anyway, and yeah, you were right, but I just had to buy it for sentimental reasons.

I think Logan also advocated for a graphical enhancement to the forum, and he seems pretty knowledgeable on that kinda of thing. Its only been 2 months or so from the switch from the old forums, and the first few weeks were spent getting the molasses out of the code. If light blue forums are reason for someone to flee the forums, well, you are never going to please that type of person I think. Changing to a nice dark blue or a lovely shade of emerald is unlikely to make that person any happier, and they can find their fish on some other hyperspace bypass.

jon
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Joined: April 9th, 2015, 4:30 pm

Re: 2015 is not a good year for the VGC

Postby jon » June 18th, 2015, 9:56 pm

Despite those minor things I mentioned, I think it's been a great year so far. I really got a kick out of the NBA Jam review for the Jaguar, and a lot of Neo Geo reviews. It's always interesting reading reviews for stuff like the 3do.

Vexer6
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Joined: April 9th, 2015, 12:14 am

Re: 2015 is not a good year for the VGC

Postby Vexer6 » June 18th, 2015, 10:20 pm

im fine with your reviews for the most part, though I tend to not bother reading ones about sports games since I find that genre as exciting as watching paint dry.

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Atarifever
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Re: 2015 is not a good year for the VGC

Postby Atarifever » June 18th, 2015, 10:40 pm

BlasteroidAli wrote:I mean you get to talk about the games and people agree with you.


Sounds pretty boring. If everyone agreed with me on a forum, that'd tell me it was time to find a better forum. I already know what I think; I want to be disagreed with to test and refine my beliefs.

"Hey guys, know what I like, Fallout 3. All of us love Fallout 3? We do? Great. Know what else I love? Gears. We all love Gears? We do? Good." zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Sorry, fell asleep. :)

In any case, sorry to see you go. Our loss is Steam's gain. Hope you have fun, and check back sometimes.

Voor
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Joined: April 14th, 2015, 8:08 pm

Re: 2015 is not a good year for the VGC

Postby Voor » June 18th, 2015, 10:49 pm

Pretty simple for me: I find the reviews about games I find interesting to be interesting, and I find the reviews about games I find to be uninteresting to be uninteresting.

Makes sense? No? Lol, ok.

But this seems to apply mostly to modern games. I'm always interested in 2600, NES, etc games for whatever reason.

i do favor the shorter reviews and I liked the old format a little better, but certainly not enough to stay away. And it sounds like it was the smart thing to do, which I respect.

So there. Lol.

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Rev
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Re: 2015 is not a good year for the VGC

Postby Rev » June 18th, 2015, 10:58 pm

Sad to see an active member go but like others have said if you aren't enjoying the site anymore than I can understand why you're leaving.

VGC wrote:Well I definitely intend to fix the color scheme on these forums, but do other people agree about the format of the reviews themselves? Too long and dry?

I'm definitely willing to alter my style if it suit the readership. Let me know!


You can't please everyone :| I personally like your more detailed reviews. They are still much shorter than the average review. Hell they're much shorter than the reader review forum and most sites that talk about games. If you try and please too many people your going to stray further away from what you like to do, and if you do that there's a good possibility it will reflect in your reviews. Like Scotland said, it's normal for your reviews to progress over time. You might consider doing one sentence reviews though, kind of like a side project (hell you could incorporate those into your current reviews somehow). They're actually a lot of fun. Might be worth considering. It's a lot harder than it sounds.

Gleebergloben123
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Joined: April 8th, 2015, 12:06 am

Re: 2015 is not a good year for the VGC

Postby Gleebergloben123 » June 19th, 2015, 1:05 am

I enjoy reading VGC's reviews, but since the forum's format has changed, I find myself coming here less and less. And that is a downer because I've been visiting this site continuously since the early 2000's. I really liked the old forum boards; these new forums just aren't my cup of tea. But as someone else posted, you can't please all the people all the time.


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